Atheism?
POSTED BY: yinyang
UPDATED: Monday, January 13, 2025 18:37
VIEWED: 5426
PAGE 3 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by yinyang:
And here I thought public school's top priority was to rake in money (or, in a few places, to actually educate). Although blanket conformity certainly would make it easier for teachers to teach, and for the boards of education to get the numbers they want, I don't think the intent of things like uniforms is necessarily malicious. It's not good, either, but the main concern of parents and teachers should be that the public school system is being run like a business, or a training ground for future factory workers.
Now see, as a teacher, this just pisses me off. I love people who attack the public school system and don't know a damn thing about it, or what it means to teach.
For starters, a public school's top priority is to make sure that all children are citizens capable of making informed decisions when they get out into the real world. I'm sorry that this costs money, but if you want a nation of (even more than we already are) easily swayed, mindless drones, by all means don't pay your taxes.
Second, uniforms aren't something designed to cramp little Joey's style. It's to keep kids from beating the shit out of each other over their shoes, and to prevent kids from displaying gang colors in the halls and starting fights. Uniforms also help self-conscious poorer kids look the same as even the richer kids, which can help them achieve. Test scores in schools with uniforms are greatly improved over schools without.
Third, I'm not training my students to be mindless drones, as your "factory worker" comment seems to imply. I tell all my students that one day I want to see them graduate from an ivy-league school and go on to be leaders of this country. Just because I teach in a public school doesn't mean I want kids to be slaves of the system. I'm trying to free their minds, not trap them.
Finally, while I'm sure I could take the time to come up with some pithy remark to crack back at your attack on my profession, I'll let a smiley do it for me.
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"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V
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And sorry for the threadjack above.
And for all the people bitching about the 'X' in Xtian? Lighten up, Francis, it's just shorthand. No one is taking the Christ out of Christianity; the X isn't crossing Christ out, it's what it stands for.
[Edited to add:]The X is the letter from the Greek that Christianity/Christ/Christian starts with.
From Wiki:
X or Xt used as a contraction for "Christ" ("X" resembles the Greek letter Χ (Chi), the first letter of "Christ" in Greek (Χριστός [Christos]).
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"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V
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(Note to self: be more specific.)
Okay. I should probably make myself more clear, then.
I think teachers are amazing people. To work in a job that most seem to take for granted with sub-standard pay is admirable. You're not only responsible for their education, but for their safety and security. And working with children at any age is difficult enough, in and of itself.
So, when I say "public schools," I mean school boards, superintendents, and the general bureaucracy that seems to surround teachers and prevent them from doing their jobs well (or as well as they could).
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Well then, Yinyang, allow me to retract my initial smiley and replace it with this one:
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"A revolution without dancing is no revolution at all." - V
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Quote:
I don't understand what the big deal about saying God in the pledge of allegiance is.
A very big deal, actually.
Original Pledge of Allegience, Sept 8th 1892.
Written by Francis Bellamy.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
1923 variation.
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
1954 Red Scare/McCarthy variation.
(Yep, ole "Tailgunner Joe" AGAIN.)
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
It's worth noting that mister Bellamys' estate, in the person of his daughter, objected rather passionately to this alteration.
I refused to utter this monstrosity back in second grade, in the late 1970's - which caused a brief stir and involved the local newspapers, my mother fully supported me in this.
It wasn't the "Under God" that did it, as much as the "Liberty and Justice for All" part that set me off against it, a child knows what hypocrisy is before they can spell it, and on top of that it struck nerves in me that I could not explain then but now know are a knee-jerk reaction to anything smacking of Fascism.
That's not to say that the "Under God" part didn't rook me too, especially once I found out the manner of it's inclusion, which resulted in a wonderfully profane and blistering exchange with my much put-upon history teacher, who was stuck teaching "officially sanctioned" history and getting hammered every day by encylopedia britannica in the person of yours truly.
And Seven, imma hafta call BS on you, I've been through that system, I have fought tooth and nail within and without against the manner in which it destroys anything remotely resembling original thought, creativity or critical thinking.. no matter what you believe, the end result is exactly as expressed by Jack.
It would be one thing for the school to work with the students to create a uniform worn by students as a badge of school pride, with their input and suggestions, but that is NOT how it is done.
They are shoved down the kids throats as a gesture of their inferiority, forced upon them to show them their place as mere property (as the law regards them as such, let's be honest here) until they come of age, and to erase all differences so that such need not be explained, explored and/or understood.
Prisoners wear uniforms too, for the same reason most students do, and believe me when I say that I personally have attended more than one school who's administrators ran it like one, in fact one of the admins WAS an ex-warden, to our knowledge and we never, ever let her forget we knew it.
And for those who still buck the tide there's the outright tsunami of ritalin to bury them under medical coercion, and if that doesn't work an "evaluation" gauranteed to find "something wrong" with them so that they can be sent somewhere else... so the creative mind, the individual person, that which made this country great, has in great part been crushed right out of it and cast aside on the scraphead of so-called progress, and no amount of overloading those kids with work till they have nervous breakdowns is gonna fix a scheme that teaches obedience rather than critical thinking, oh hell no.
Very, VERY touchy issue with me, having been forcibly ejected from schools for being a critical thinker, for asking questions and for not being a nice, obedient pet animal, but rather a person who demanded the same basic respect as a human being that was being given.
And now watching my niece go through an upgraded and worse rendition of the very selfsame events because she doesn't meekly obey, because she is intelligent, curious, and creative and yet rather than rewarded by this, is actively harrassed and punished for it by the system, fills me with a blin
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I wore a school uniform and was ok with it, in fact I would go as far as to say it was a good thing. You had no idea of another kids personal circumstances by the way they dressed, if you wanted to know someone you had to talk to them to find out their story, the contents were not being advertised on the "packaging."
Besides fashion is far more regimented than we like to imagine. Kids don't have a genuine "youth culture" they have a set of "looks" that are packaged and sold to them as product. If you are a Goth you dress a certain way, if you like Hip Hop you dress another. It's prepack. When everyone dresses the same the only way to show you are different is to be different. We were all very strange (but we're English so being strange is expected .)
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Quote:If one is an Englishman, one isn't strange, one is eccentric.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
...but we're English so being strange is expected.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
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ROFLMAO.
*wiping coffee off the monitor*
oh my oh my... just imagining that in a proper british accent KILLS me...
bwahahahaha
-F
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Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:Quote:If one is an Englishman, one isn't strange, one is eccentric.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
...but we're English so being strange is expected.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
You're only allowed to be eccentric once you've mastered strange. We all get a basic education in strange, those that chose to pursue that to a higher level become eccentric. Trust me on this I have A levels in eccentric.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:Quote:If one is an Englishman, one isn't strange, one is eccentric.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
...but we're English so being strange is expected.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
You're only allowed to be eccentric once you've mastered strange. We all get a basic education in strange, those that chose to pursue that to a higher level become eccentric. Trust me on this I have A levels in eccentric.
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